Tonight, two sources of battlefield 3 information will be coming in. First, Gametrailers is hosting a show via Spike.tv showing off some new footage of Battlefield 3′s singleplayer campaign as well as a tour to the studio in Stockholm. This will be airing in North America at 1:05AM EST (GMT-5) / 12:05AM CST (GMT-6). We are currently trying to get a stream source of spike.TV so that you our viewers can have instant access to whatever will be shown. You can find out more info about this at the Gametrailers Page

Secondly, and more importantly, IGN will be posting a huge amount of content at 3:00AM PST (GMT-8) / 6:00AM EST (GMT-5) this evening. According to the video posted, it will feature two new multiplayer maps and new singleplayer / coop footage. A little bird has delivered us some info and it’s to our knowledge that tomorrow, DICE is hosting a Press event in their office. This event is supposedly showcasing the FINAL BUILD of Battlefield 3. With only 18 days remaining until the game comes out, it’s almost time for it to go gold and be printed for retail. With this new batch of information coming, we will keep you posted here at Battlefield as the news comes in.

Thursday, 6 October, 2011 at 17:39 PST | ^Scott^ | Print News
This evening in San Francisco is the Battlefield 3 Final Hours event, where media will get some hands-on time with brand new singleplayer, co-op and of course new multiplayer maps for Battlefield 3. Unfortunately there is an embargo on all this info so here's what we know:

Well i just did a full reformat! Needed to know if it was just drivers/BF3 or one of my cards, if its my cards im thinking of selling them and maybe getting a gtx580 for 400 or a 570 for 300 with and ssd for 109 at microcenter. When drivers/cards work right the game plays great. All i want is to run BF3 properly and CF seems buggy as hell, not sure what to do lol. Just waiting for beta to DL again and spend the morning playing to see if there are anymore CTD and BSOD related to driver/cards

reboot again install 11.9 WHQL or 11.10 preview do not install the Catalyst App profiles just use the basic drivers ive been running 11.10 preview nothing else and all has worked well getting 70-90fps in the BF3 beta with my 2x 6950 2gb cards

I went with the 11.9s as they seem the most stable for me with the 11.9 cap1 so ill see how it goes. Ill give it a few days after final release and see how it goes. Everythings a fresh install now so see how it goes! And wow i am really impressed at how realtek onboard sounds now, blew me away! might get me a 6990 end of the mth, whats a min PSU for that card?

Yeah but I'm disappointed by how the defibrillator works. I hoped for that BF2 recharging sound and "CLEAR!". Too bad Dice forgot some things were better done in BF2 vs BC2.
I'm shocked and excited that people finally die when you shoot them in their faces. Can't wait for all my headless chicken tard rushes.

After analyzing the data from our first round of closed Caspian Border tests, we have great news for participants in the Battlefield 3 PC Open Beta: the DICE team has decided to bring back Caspian Border for the beta’s final weekend and conduct an open large scale test of the 64 player Caspian Border map.

*****Please keep in mind that as this is beta we will be stress testing our servers*****

As such, users may experience crashes, network instability and outages as we roll out and configure servers and network utilities. Understand that such potential issues and the testing environment are not reflective or indicative of the final product and that, through your participation, you will be helping to ensure future stability and functionality.

As we are again specifically testing 64-player server configurations, this test will be for PC only. The Caspian Border servers will be available for all PC players to join. Caspian Border will be available starting Friday, October 7th, in the afternoon (CET).

Big maps and vehicles make everything better.
October 7, 2011
by Peter Eykemans

Battlefield 3 holds the weight of the gaming world on its shoulders. With the unavoidable comparison to Call of Duty, all eyes are on DICE and EA create something awesome. Since June, we've seen little to no news of progress beyond several demos of Operation Metro, a touch of the campaign, and a glimpse of what it's like to fly jets. Additionally, the public beta birthed widespread concern over whether or not the game can live up to the hype. With just over two weeks until the game arrives on store shelves, this dearth of info served as a red flag -- until now. After tackling a combination of single player, co-op, and multiplayer in a fresh build of Battlefield 3, I must say I'm pleasantly surprised.

Is it as glitchy as the beta? Not in my experience. If you've noticed, the beta hasn't updated on consoles and the build available to the public is over six weeks old. My time spent with these maps on PC and PS3 flowed smoothly the entire time. I never saw anyone fall through the map and no long-neck avatars squirmed across the ground twitching. Not only that, enemies appear to take more damage to kill -- another qualm I had with what I'd played before the latest demo. Steady aim is paramount to success and I'd often have to run down a wounded player to finish them off. I too escaped death a few times after absorbing some damage and rushing to safety.

As a match faded in on a level called Operation Firestorm, I breathed a sigh of relief. The map is enormous. Built for 64 players on PC, this Conquest map screams Battlefield through and through. Tanks, jeeps, and buggies rumble across the desert while jets and helicopters tear through the skies. Burning oil fields decorate the horizon with black smoke, and the sheer scale of the experience feels like a return to the series' roots. Running (as well as driving or flying) from point to point to raise my team's flag felt great and I couldn't help but forget my growing concerns from what I'd experienced of Battlefield 3 in the past.

This feeling continued on a smaller map called Grand Bazaar that featured tanks rumbling through the town square, and tight nooks and crannies dotting the shuttered store fronts of the level's marketplace. Fighting through the objectives in this map showed off destruction, allowing you to blow holes in walls to make your own doors and get through buildings quickly. The balance of tight corridors and a wide open center area made for a great balance, and again a better representation of the series' aim than the narrow length of Operation Metro.

While it's too early to make any calls on Battlefield 3's narrative, a few campaign levels show a familiar storytelling device. Set against the interrogation of a Sergeant Blackburn, the actual campaign levels are memories the Sergeant recollects to two suits prodding him for info about a New York terror plot. Remember how each level of Call of Duty: Black Ops played out as a memory of the protagonist?

Without spoiling the story, there are a few key elements of the single player experience to discuss. The levels do force a certain linearity that strays from the more open levels of Battlefield: Bad Company 2. But after seeing a greater portion of the game than our last preview, the levels do break into larger, open firefights. The only problem is that the enemies then spawn from set points and seem to suffer from a Medal of Honor-ish "enemy dispenser" problem.

One fun level from the campaign showed off an interesting approach. Stepping into the shoes of a female pilot you take the backseat of a fighter jet, taking off from an aircraft carrier and shooting down enemy Migs north of Tehran. While you're not in control, you're tasked with spotting jets chasing you, releasing flares to avoid incoming missiles, and locking on to bad guys when you have the shot. It's a refreshing balance to the levels set shooting your way through tight Middle Eastern marketplaces and rubble.

Still curious about more ways to play? Meet co-op. Co-op levels are separate from the single player campaign but revolve around scenarios linked into the main story. I'd liken the experience to a roaming survival mode. Each map has an objective or task, and you and your partner need to stay alive to accomplish that feat. Thus, you need to stay alive as enemy after enemy burst through doors and try to take you down -- at least in the level entitled Hit and Run that I played. With only a handful of time spent in this mode, it feels like fun additional content to keep the fight going outside of the main story.

The final version of Battlefield 3 still isn't ready for us to review and DICE have been frantically implementing notes from the beta into their current build. What I experienced of the game still revealed some minor glitches, but it's come a long way from the beta you might be playing right now. While the campaign may hold shadows of familiarity and cliche, the multiplayer places its best foot forward and looks to please longtime fans of the Battlefield series itching to drive and fly to online glory.

Just got done playing on Caspian Border. Just amazing, and I'm a person who loves rush. Just the scope of it was great, 64 players is the way to go

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IMO I hate Metro, but it could have been a lot better if they made it 64 players. the map can clearly support more. in most of my games. the round ended in the park (stage one) and never even made it close to the final bomb site place. too many people camping and not enough people pushing forward. and those that were pushing forward like me, a mate and a handful of players lacked support and were mowed down by the opposing team with their OP UMP-45's